Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1898 — THE VACANT CHAIR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE VACANT CHAIR.

T seemed to Aunt Huldah Simmons that the pumpkin had never looked so pale and waxy, the apples so Weazened, even the turkey itself* so lifelessly dismal, as on that especial Thanksgiving morning. “It’s going to be a failure!” she said snappishly. “For

twenty years the cheeriest, the brightest, the happiest celebration under this roof ever was—and nowl” Aunt Huldah plunged her arms to the elbows into the flour barrel, and choked with the dust she raised, and was glad of an excuse to smother a kind of a sob. Just then the groceryman from town drove up, brought in his basket of “extrys and fixin’s,” and for a moment stopped to ateam his snow-crusted shoes at the blazing fireplace. * “Well, mum! well, mum!” he said briskly, “on hand, as I see? Why, it’s getting to be a milestone in my life, mum!” “What is?” demanded Aunt Huldah tartly. Poor soul, she did not feel overcompanionable. “Coming here—at this hour, on this day. Think of it, Miss Simmons! For twenty year, every Thanksgiving day, I’ve delivered the ordered basket of raisins, and currants, and mace, and citron, and nuts, and every Thanksgiving morning for twenty year your blessed face has smiled ‘Come ini’ I say, mum, if some Thanksgiving morning I should miss just this, I’d go home, shut up shop, and begin to think ‘Things hain’t right—the best dinner

in the world ain’t going to be cooked today!” “You’ll miss, next time!” almost grumbled Aunt Huldah. “Don’t tell, Miss Simmons—oh, shorely not!” and the grocer looked anxious. (“Yes, ’twill!” affirmed Hulduh, half crying, half mad. TAnd what’s the matter, mum?” /‘The charm is gone, the circle is brokei, and—don’t pester me, man! Pm that downcast! I feel more like a day of fasting than feasting!” The storekeeper gave a solemn nod of iind stalked out to his wagon misthat boy!” he sighed, and wagged d gravely. rously he wagged it all the way i town. “That boy” was a lively that afforded him plenty to think twenty years Aunt Huldah Simliad come over from Parkville to itond Thanksgiving dinner for • Enoch Dnlton and his wife, twenty years there had sat at the table the two happiest children in ite —Nanny and Walter. ; llnldnh had watched them gradate from high chair to common folks’ chair—had seen Nanny grow into a charming miss, and Walter Into a Rtahvart, handsome fellow, “a trifle too lively for the times!" Two years back he had come to the Thanksgiving table late —for the first time aince he knew what Thanksgiving dinners were. One year back he came later, and talked loud and long, and his eye was suspiciously bright, and, lluldnli noted, those of his parents secretly dimmed aiul sorrowful. Ip December gossip told Aunt Tlnldah that her nephew hud "gone to the dogs." In February gossip hud it that there hod been ‘‘a terrible row” between father and son. When May blossoms were painting the vines rose and snow color, the story came of a dissipated son ordered out of the house till he could behave like a man—of a high-spirit answering the stern affront

with a prompt departure, and not a word had been heard of the wandering eon, brother and nephew since. So, no wonder that Aunt Huldah browned the turkey with a lack-spirit zest, that doleful morning—and ho wonder that pretty Nanny beat the pudding sauce between spells of tears, for there was a vacant chair at the Dalton table only one person could fill, and he was a wanderer, lost, missing, that sad Thanksgiving day. Tap—tap! “Come in!” spoke Mr. Dalton. “It’s a tramp,” murmured Aunt Huldah. “Sit down, won’t yon, and have some dinner?” insinuated Mrs. Dalton’s ’gentle, motherly tones. The dinner had been a blank failure. Pretty Nanny was almost thankful for the incident that distracted thoughts and attention from the vacant chair beside her.. The cloaked, snow-shot figure entering moved towards that chair at the invitation, “Not there!” sharply said Mr. Dalton. “No, set another chair and plate, sister,” suggested his wife. “I’ll take this one!” amazingly spoke the intruder. “You thought enough of scapegrace Walter to keep him in memory, eh, folks? Well, maybe I deserved it!” Back went the enveloping ulster, and a bronzed, bearded fellow smiled, all hands around. “Waitl” he said, as Aunt Huldah shrieked hysterically, as Nanny glided up tremblingly, as his mother nearly fainted, and his father turned white, hopeful, anxious. “I’ve come back a new Walter. I’ve been in the Cuban war.” “Oh, my boy! my boy!” murmured his mother poignantly. “Father, if I hadn’t been ‘all right’ I’d never have had the courage to face what lost me that”—and the hero showed one arm missing at the elbow. “If I had not learned to obey orders better than when I left home, they would never have honored me with those,” and Walter indicated the barred shoulder straps he wore. “I’ve come back for forgiveness—a better boy, a new Walter,” went on the sol-dier-penitent. “And I’ve brought a pledge that I mean to live life in earnest. Father, mother, this is my wife!” Walter bad stepped back to open the door. There, shy, beautiful, with anxious pleading in her lovely Cuban face, was the girl-wife of the boy-soldier. “Come in!” spoke Nanny, her soul in her eyes, her welcoming hands outstretched. “Yes,” brokenly but fervently cried Mr. Dalton. “As Uncle Sam says to all his wards, ‘Enter! Here is home!’ My boy, your story tells itself. Welcome, Walter and wife, to the happiest Thanksgiving reunion in Christendom!” “And I slighted the turkey!” mourned Aunt Huldah Simmons, under her breath, “and I made the biscuits just as my heart felt—like lend! I’m punished for shirking my duty. Well, in this world yon never van know what’s going to happen next!” WELDON J. COBB.

“ON, MY BOY! MY BOY!”